Relative of backpacker killer Ivan Milat jailed for copycat murder

Matthew Milat, a relative of the notorious backpacker killer Ivan Milat, has been sentenced to 43 years in jail for the brutal copycat murder of a teenager who was subject to "almost inconceivable torment and torture".

Matthew Milat is escorted from the King Street courts in SydneyPhoto: AFP/Getty Images

By Jonathan Pearlman in Sydney

9:43AM BST 08 Jun 2012

Milat murdered his friend, David Auchterlonie, with a double-sided axe after luring the victim to the same forest where his great uncle killed seven backpackers in the early 1990s.

Milat, now 19, along with an accomplice, Cohen Klein, and a third friend, Chase Day, who has not been charged, persuaded David to come to the forest with the promise of smoking cannabis and drinking to celebrate the victim's 17th birthday in November 2010.

Before the killing, Milat reportedly rubbed his hands together and said: "We're going to Belanglo, someone's going to die." He later bragged about the killing, glorifying the murder in poems to his mother and claiming that he had done "what my family does".

During sentencing today at the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Jane Mathews said Milat's expressions of remorse were completely insincere and he seemed to "revel in the events".

"In the last 10 minutes of his life, the deceased was subject to almost inconceivable torment and torture by Milat," she said.

"It is almost impossible to imagine the terror that the deceased was subjected to. It was a thoroughly senseless and brutal murder. He took the life of an innocent young man who was unfortunate enough to be his friend in a completely brutal manner, simply for his own enjoyment." The haunting sounds of the murder and the 15 minutes leading up to it were captured on an audio recording by Klein's phone. Justice Mathews said that to describe the recording as "chilling ... is an understatement".

Milat's sentence came with a 30-year non-parole period. His accomplice, Klein, who the court heard was "strongly influenced" by Milat, was sentenced to 32 years in jail with a 22-year non-parole period.

The teenagers had claimed they wanted to hurt and scare David, not kill him.

However, Justice Matthews said the poems written by Milat in jail helped to show that the killing was premeditated and deliberate.

"Not only did Milat describe himself in one of these poems as a cold-blooded killer, but the poem "Your last day" ... has all the hallmarks of a gloated reminiscence of the deliberate tormenting and killing of the deceased," she said.

Ivan Milat was sentenced to life in prison in 1996 after dumping the bodies of seven young backpackers in the Belanglo State Forest, south-west of Sydney. The senior Milat, now in a high-security prison, reportedly "chuckled a bit" after learning about his relative's crime.